The present invention relates to a training device designed for teaching a user to master a golf swing and more specifically to a device that provides the guiding components for interactive and passive guiding a golf club throughout a training swing by a user from a waiting stance up to an end of a backswing, and through a forward swing up to a ball impact zone, and that allows a user to hit a ball without any hindrance from the guiding components by naturally swinging follow-though.
The present invention relates to a guiding device or “guidance system” that interactively and passively guides a user throughout a golf training swing. The term a “guidance system” refers to any type of visual or kinesthetic training aid that literally guides a player's behavior. The word kinesthetic in relation to sports training indicates something, which is felt or perceived physically while it is experienced. This means that if users can experience physically (kinesthetically) what its like to swing the golf club through the assistance of a golf swing guiding device, they will then be able to repeat that feeling under real conditions.
The term “interactive guiding” refers to a guiding component, which defines interactively the pace or rhythm of the movement, as a “passive guiding” component defines positioning of the golf club shaft, correspondingly the user's wrists positions, relative to the user's forearms along the golf swing trajectory at each interactive moment of the training swing. The guiding components are a guiding-arm, a short lead thereof connected to the distal end of a golf club tows interactively the club shaft up to the end of the backswing, and a resistance-arm, a finger thereof resists passively to the golf club movements throughout the backswing. Both the arms are rotatable around an axis set perpendicularly to a swing plane of the club head, at a user's hips height in a housing, so that both guiding- and resistance-arms do not interferer with user's arms and body movements during exercising the swing by the user with the device.
From the end of the backswing during a forward swing the resistance-arm is working as an interactive guiding component for interactive guiding a golf club, when a resistance-arm finger pushing interactively against a golf club shaft at a point near to a club grip, and the guiding-arm, in its turn, resisting passively to the golf club movements by the lead, which will be released from the guiding-arm at a defined point of the swing, while the resistance-arm finger continuing to push on the club shaft through a hitting portion of the swing; thereby enabling the user to accelerate the swing motion and hit a ball without any hindrance from the guiding components by naturally swinging follow-though.
Thus, the nature of guiding forces, i.e. towing and resistive forces through the backswing, and pushing and resistive forces through a forward swing, simultaneously applied to the golf club at two apart points thereof via the finger and the guiding lead, provide guiding, and enhance positional control of the club shaft at each interactive moment of the swing motion. A driving unit and a computer system provide controlled rotation of both the guiding- and resistance-arms throughout the training swing by the user. The device is equally applicable to a baseball bat.
Devices have been provided in the past for improving a practice swing of a golf club, baseball bat, or the like, and generally these have been restricted to practice and develop a correct repeating swing from the waiting stance to follow-through under conditions in close proximity to the real ones.